In the late 1990s, after college, I snapped so many photos that I ended
up building a 5-by-6-foot darkroom in the corner of my living room in
Brooklyn. There, standing amid long, dark strips of film under the glow
of a dim red light, I spent countless hours mixing pungent chemicals and
developing and printing photographs.

I have since retired most of my film cameras. Now, my camera bag is all
digital, and my darkroom is 7 inches wide and 9.5 inches long: an Apple iPad.

The chemicals I once used have been replaced by a tiny, white USB
connector that allows me to transfer my photos from any digital camera
into the iPad in a matter of seconds.

What inspired me to jump from film to digital was immediacy — or
impatience, depending on how you look at it. In the old days, I’d have
to finish a roll of film, get home, develop it, wait, then wait some
more. With digital, you snap a picture and there it is, like magic, on
the back of your digital camera. With the iPad as a darkroom, it’s also
editable immediately.

Editing your photos on an iPad instead of a conventional laptop also
means you can carry one device fewer on your travels. Although most
applications on the iPad will shrink the size and therefore the quality
of your images when you import them, there are apps that can deal with
full-size images. You can even connect wirelessly to printers intended
to work with the iPad.

For older iPads with a 30-pin connection, Apple sells the $29 Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit.
It comes with two connectors that plug directly into the iPad’s base.
One has a USB cable slot, which works with almost any camera, and the
other has a slot for SD memory cards.

There are also many less expensive third-party connectors, including a
2-in-1 Camera Connection Kit ($10) available from Amazon.

The cables for newer iPads, with the lighting connector, are overpriced, with each connector costing $30.

To transfer the photos from your camera, you plug a connector into the
base of your iPad, connect your camera with a USB cord, then turn the
camera on. The iPad will detect that the device is connected and allow
you to select which images you would like to import. It’s quicker than a
Polaroid.

The immediacy of digital has pushed photographers to want to edit their
photos and then share them right away. A number of applications allow
you to do this, some free and some costing as much as $20.

SnapSeed
($5) is an app made specifically for multitouch photo-editing. Sliding
your finger up and down on the screen will allow you to alter the image,
changing the contrast, brightness or saturation. A feature called
Selective Adjust allows you to drag little adjustable pointers all over a
picture to tweak the lighting in specific areas.

Apple’s own iPhoto application
($5) for the iPad also has some advanced features. You can apply
filters, turning a color photo into a sepia or “vintage” image. If
you’re in a rush, “auto-enhance” will try to improve the image for you.
There are also brushes that pop out from the bottom of the screen,
making your iPad feel like a painter’s palette. These can be used to
remove red-eye and soften or sharpen an image.

Adobe,
the big maker of graphics and photoediting software, offers two
photo-specific iPad applications. Photoshop Express, which is free, has
some limited editing features, like adjusting tint, saturation and
exposure, but it’s really for novices. Advanced users will want to try
Photoshop Touch ($10). This application offers similar controls to Adobe
software on a standard computer — layers, curves, the ability to add
text, and other advanced features. But be warned: the app is somewhat
confusing to navigate, and you will have to take some time with its
tutorial before jumping in.

For photographers who want to take iPad editing to another level, there are more advanced — and expensive — options.

Jeff Carlson, author of the book “The iPad for Photographers,” sometimes bypasses the iPad camera connection kit in favor of an EyeFi SD card and an app called ShutterSnitch ($16). EyeFi cards, which range
from $40 to $100 depending on speed and memory size, can connect
directly with your iPad wirelessly. Mr. Carlson said that although EyeFi
offers a free app, ShutterSnitch is much faster and has a more advanced interface.

Mr. Carlson said he sometimes captures RAW images
with his digital cameras. These are uncompressed and large files, often
used by professional photographers because they preserve more of the
image quality than standard JPEG files. To handle these files he
sometimes uses the apps piRAWnha or Photoraw, both $10. But his favored
application is Photosmith ($20) an advanced tool that can wirelessly transfer pictures to your desktop computer for printing or editing later.

The only question remaining is which iPad to use. The newer iPads with
retina displays are the best choice for editing, as the screen is
phenomenally crisp. But they are also expensive. Of course the iPad Mini
is lighter, and a fraction of the price, so it might be a better option
for vacation snaps. But if you’re someone who really wants to get into
your digital photos, you might be disappointed with the Mini’s screen
resolution and prefer the big version.

Although digital cameras have changed the way most photographers shoot, I
haven’t retired all of my film equipment just yet. There is one area of
photography that most app makers and digital camera companies seem to
have neglected: black and white.

All of the apps mentioned in this article can strip the color out of an image like a scene from the movie “Pleasantville,”
but none have succeeded in recreating the authentic look of black and
white photos. In most instances, shooting black and white on digital
cameras can feel like making a pizza in a microwave: sure, it looks like
a pizza, but it’s just not right.

So every once in a while I will still shoot
a roll of 3200-speed black-and-white film on one of my old cameras.
Then off I go to a darkroom to get it developed. Nowadays, while I sit
waiting amid those pungent and familiar smells, I have my digital
darkroom with me, and I edit photos on my iPad while the chemicals work
their magic

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About Me

I am an entrepreneur. I have owned a grocery store, restaurant, published a weekly periodical, owned a video store chain, run a coffee-sandwich shop, and have extensive experience in real estate (sales, development, & as a general contractor). Over the last few years, I worked as preservationist of a historical property (rehabing an 1864 mill building). Founder, President of India Museum and Heritage Society in Providence. Past President of India Association of RI. Past Member Heritage Harbor Museum Board.
New England Republican Council.